Soviet Karelian artist Georgy Stronk 1910-2005
Soviet Karelian artist Georgy Stronk (October 10, 1910 – December 6, 2005) – Member of the USSR Union of Artists, Honored Artist of the Karelian-Finnish SSR (1947), People’s Artist of the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1970), laureate of the State Prize of the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1981). He got the state prize for a series of portraits of the “Old Bolsheviks of Karelia”, as well as for his illustrations and easel drawings to the epic “Kalevala”. In 1940-53 and 1982-85 he was a chairman of the Union of Artists of Karelia.
Georgy was born October 10, 1910 in Poland. After moving to Ukraine, he worked as a worker, and in particular, as a tinsmith at a shipyard in Nikolayev. In 1932 he graduated from Nikolaev art college. And in the 1932-38 he studied at the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, workshop of Brodsky (diploma painting – “Pushkin after the duel”). While on vacation, he took part in folklore and ethnographic expeditions to Karelia (1937).
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